Benotti69 wrote:Cecchini worked on Aristoea for 1 year with Ferrari yet claims he doesn't know him and met him once.

Take what those in the sport say about their doping involvement with a grain of salt.

Do you have a source for that claim, that Cecchini claims he doesn't know Ferrari, claims he only met Ferrari the once? Because, again, from what I have seen, Cecchini does not deny that he and Ferrari were both part of the Ariostea set-up. Of course, the simple answer here is that you can't read, that you read a quote saying Cecchini claims not to know Conconi, claims to have met Conconi only the once, only you weren't paying attention when you were reading and decided it was talking about Ferrari, not Conconi.

".......... I also wasn't in close contact with Ferrari. We worked together for one season with Ariostea. Our contact was dry and business related but with mutual respect."

Benotti69 wrote:Cecchini worked on Aristoea for 1 year with Ferrari yet claims he doesn't know him and met him once.

Take what those in the sport say about their doping involvement with a grain of salt.

Do you have a source for that claim, that Cecchini claims he doesn't know Ferrari, claims he only met Ferrari the once? Because, again, from what I have seen, Cecchini does not deny that he and Ferrari were both part of the Ariostea set-up. Of course, the simple answer here is that you can't read, that you read a quote saying Cecchini claims not to know Conconi, claims to have met Conconi only the once, only you weren't paying attention when you were reading and decided it was talking about Ferrari, not Conconi.

".......... I also wasn't in close contact with Ferrari. We worked together for one season with Ariostea. Our contact was dry and business related but with mutual respect."

I don't at this moment have access to my copy of Lance Armstrong's War (aka "Tour de Force"), but I am pretty convinced that it mentions that Ferrari and Cecchini worked together in the same team from 1990 until 1992 (more than one season). Those type minor errors in dates are common and not particularly damning, but I recall that the book describes how they used to compete against each other riding bicycles and Cecchini always won and Ferrari even could tell the amount of watts that Cecchini produced, so therefore it appears they had more than "dry" and "business related" relationship. I see no reason for Ferrari to lie about the connection, even when he described something like that they hadn't been in touch for a few years.

That is still only a subjective opinion from Cecchini about their relationship, and I fully understand why someone would like to distance himself from the radioactive Ferrari.

Here is an interesting old news item CN:

More recently, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Hamilton's coach Dr. Luigi "Cecco" Cecchini of Lucca, Italy, is also newly implicated in the Puerto dossier. Although Cecchini has denied any involvement in Puerto, Dr. Fuentes has been quoted as saying "Cecco is a friend of mine".

There is no context on where and why Fuentes made the quotation about the Italian. And these "attributed to", "some newsreport claim that" and "is alleged to have said"- type claims with no specific source have a bad habit of getting a part of the folklore, accurate or not after they have been published a few times.

Benotti69 wrote:Cecchini worked on Aristoea for 1 year with Ferrari yet claims he doesn't know him and met him once.

Take what those in the sport say about their doping involvement with a grain of salt.

Do you have a source for that claim, that Cecchini claims he doesn't know Ferrari, claims he only met Ferrari the once? Because, again, from what I have seen, Cecchini does not deny that he and Ferrari were both part of the Ariostea set-up. Of course, the simple answer here is that you can't read, that you read a quote saying Cecchini claims not to know Conconi, claims to have met Conconi only the once, only you weren't paying attention when you were reading and decided it was talking about Ferrari, not Conconi.

".......... I also wasn't in close contact with Ferrari. We worked together for one season with Ariostea. Our contact was dry and business related but with mutual respect."

Aragon wrote:I don't at this moment have access to my copy of Lance Armstrong's War (aka "Tour de Force"), but I am pretty convinced that it mentions that Ferrari and Cecchini worked together in the same team from 1990 until 1992 (more than one season).

I'll offer some of the quotes, with the caveats that Coyle got some things wrong

Ferrari was here because he had what was widely acknowledged as one of the two most brilliant minds in cycling. The other belonged to fellow Italian Dr. Luigi Cecchini, who trains several of Armstrong’s top rivals. Ferrari and Cecchini, former colleagues, were usually described in the media as “notorious.” Exactly what notorious meant was difficult to say, but it seemed based on three qualificiations: (1) Ferrari and Cecchini, who each worked as independent contractors, had trained many extremely successful cyclists; (2) Italian authorities and the European cycling media had raised questions over whether they had used entirely legal means to do so; and (3) it was a compelling notion. Can any reader remain uninterested in a story that mentions one of the planet’s best athletes being advised by “the notorious Doctor Ferrari”?

And then there's this:

As it happened, Ferrari was currently on trial on three counts of doping-related offenses in Italian court (charges against Cecchini had been dropped in 2001 due to lack of evidence).

And this:

Ferrari was Conconi’s prize student, and wrote his thesis on anaerobic threshold; Cecchini studied at Ferrara for one year. They were also cyclists. On their bikes, the two set out to explore the territory of this threshold, to investigate factors like hematocrit, the percentage of oxygen-carrying red blood cells; or glycogen stores, or lung capacity—all of them potential levers to nudge that holy number upward.

I do think Coyle is wrong on Cecchini studying at Ferrara for a year - or at least no one seems to be able to produce any evidence he did, though it has become accepted wisdom. Going back to Ariostea - one season or three seasons, is he lying, I don't know. I think Ferrari was with Ariostea from 1990 through 1992 and I know Cecchini was with Ariostea in 1992 but I don't know when Ferrati brought him in. It may be in the Riis book, but I'll have to leave checking that for another day. I do know that I have in the past failed to come up with anything like a good timeline of the teams Cecchini was officially linked with (whereas I was able to do that for Ferrari and Fuentes).

Aragon wrote:Those type minor errors in dates are common and not particularly damning, but I recall that the book describes how they used to compete against each other riding bicycles and Cecchini always won and Ferrari even could tell the amount of watts that Cecchini produced, so therefore it appears they had more than "dry" and "business related" relationship. I see no reason for Ferrari to lie about the connection, even when he described something like that they hadn't been in touch for a few years.

I know of a story from Eugenio Capodacqua about a race up the Stelvio that involved lots of luminaries of the era, including even Hein Verbruggen. Elsewhere what I've read suggests a masters circuit that they competed in (Conconi, Ferrari and Cecchini all seem to have used themselves as a research tool, but then so too did Willy Voet).

Going back to Coyle, there's this:

Cecchini, the chubby scion who had come to cycling to lose weight, transformed himself, logging 50,000 kilometers in his peak years, the equivalent of riding a Tour de France each month. Ferrari, the former runner, wasn’t too far behind, pushing 320 watts at threshold and weighing a mere 67 kilos. When he and Ferrari raced together, however, Cecchini usually won. “He was superstrong,” said Ferrari, who does not use the term lightly. “Super, superstrong, eh?” Conconi was no slouch, either, defeating far younger cyclists in hill-climbing races until he was well into his sixties.

I may not be looking hard enough but I have found no reference to Ferrari guesstimating Cecchini's wattage.

@fmk-Rol You wrote an article where you yourself claim Cecchini was one of the Ferrara boys?

"To give some perspective on how much esteem there was for Conconi's clan in Ferrara - which, over the years, included other well known doctors, such as Luigi Cecchini, Michele Ferrari, Aldo Sassi and Carlos Santuccione - look at what happened in Banesto when Sabino Padilla left the team. Francesco Conconi had worked with Miguel Induráin in the eighties and it was to Italy that José Miguel Echávarri, Induráin's directeur sportif, looked after Padilla left, giving the people at Ferrara this glowing reference:

"I am seeking collaboration with [Ilario] Casoni, [Nicola] Alfieri and [Marcello] Lodi [another three of Conconi's protégés at Ferrara] at least for a team get together which will be held in Palma di Majorca in February [1996]. There will hopefully be some tests in Milan followed by a week at Pamplona. At the present time the Italians lead the world in sports medicine and training techniques. A void has been left by Sabino Padilla, the medic who has left Banesto after so many years to take a position with the football club Atletico Bilbao. Sabino, who was Induráin's personal trainer, left without even mapping out the [1996] season. So we have to find a new medic, either in Spain or in Italy, but probably from the University of Ferrara. As of now Casoni, Alfieri and Lodi are being considered as our consultants."

So, again, why had Conconi proposed the H-test in 1996? Was it at the behest of the UCI, who needed a fig-leaf behind which they could hide? Could it have been because the competitive advantage he had been able to offer Italian cyclists had been wiped out by most of the rest of the peloton turning to EPO too? Was it because his protégés - particularly Cecchini, Ferrari and Santuccione - were selling their services to the highest bidders, regardless of nationality? Who really knows. All we know is it happened. And what was going on in the sport at the time it happened."

Talking about Capodacqua did you use him to link Conconi to Cecchini? You do know his suspicion also comes from the various police investigation into Conconi defrauding CONI?

It seems our Spartacus is not so keen on Lappartient's focus on motor doping. The four time ITT world champion, three time winner of Paris-Roubaix, three time winner of the Ronde van Vlaanderen, two time ITT Olympic gold medallist, one time winner of Milan-Sanremo, and the man most associated with the use of motors says:

‘The president has to work at how he can combine the efforts of different organisations in cycling and the teams, for instance better cooperation between ASO and the UCI. That’s more important than just doping, as cycling will sink if this foundation isn’t there. It’s good to look at doping or motor doping, but these things cost money. We have to look also at how money can come into the sport, not only for the UCI but for the teams, and for the riders.'

Benotti69 wrote:Cecchini worked on Aristoea for 1 year with Ferrari yet claims he doesn't know him and met him once.

Take what those in the sport say about their doping involvement with a grain of salt.

Do you have a source for that claim, that Cecchini claims he doesn't know Ferrari, claims he only met Ferrari the once? Because, again, from what I have seen, Cecchini does not deny that he and Ferrari were both part of the Ariostea set-up. Of course, the simple answer here is that you can't read, that you read a quote saying Cecchini claims not to know Conconi, claims to have met Conconi only the once, only you weren't paying attention when you were reading and decided it was talking about Ferrari, not Conconi.

".......... I also wasn't in close contact with Ferrari. We worked together for one season with Ariostea. Our contact was dry and business related but with mutual respect."

I would draw a completely different conclusion from the article you quoted.

Hi Le Breton,Please do explain. I am reading it again and I am still missing the other meaning.

It looks to me that your point would have been valid (acting like a little kid) if Cancellara had set-up that challenge to Gaimon out of the blue, but that isn't the case at all. The 8 challenges already existed and he just seized on the opportunity to tackle Gaimon.

While he obviously would defeat Gaimon on raw power, we all know that such a victory would say nothing about what is at issue here and the 2008 and 2010 races where Fabian has been accused by some of using a motor.

PS a few days later : Cancellara's sense of humour obviously didn't travel well, or maybe got lost in translation.

Last edited by Le breton on 25 Nov 2017 14:43, edited 1 time in total.

"The foundations are the problem: the UCI, the big organisers, the teams and riders. There’s a lack of unity and a global vision for the future. It’s a bordello. The politics of the sport don’t work and so everyone suffers. Everyone just thinks about what they can earn in the short term. Yet cycling, for the emotions it gives people, has enormous potential. Sadly that’s not used in the right way."

"I don’t think someone has used one because there’s a chance you’d get caught and exposed. I was always strong and my legs are my motor. There’s lot of envy out there and when you win they take aim at you. But I’m happy with what I did for the good of cycling."

When you post something about Cancellara being Luigi in Operacion Puerto, and you're corrected by literally the best source. @thomasdekker

Curiously, it was Gaimon who defended Cancellara against Armstrong's taunts about "Luigi"Re-visiting that subject, I read Dekker's The Descent recently, and it was rather poorly ghost-written by an anonymous journalist, with some of the details being outright fabricated, as a literary device. But, there was enough substance in the story-book to make a fairly convincing impression that Dekker was, in fact, "Clasicómano Luigi"

Looking again at the details of the blood bags from Operación Puerto, one conclusion is: that "Clasicómano Luigi" and "Clasicómano" cannot be the same person. There were two different "classics guys". Both sets of blood bags fit the 2006 schedules of both Dekker and Cancellara, but the bags labeled "Clasicómano Luigi" fit the dates of Dekker's race schedule better. And Dekker didn't have a very good motive to falsely take claim for being "Luigi". One of the dates given in the Descent , if accurate, proves that Dekker was not "Clasicómano".

Neither set of blood bags make much sense for Juan Antonio Flecha, so I don't believe Flecha was "Clasicómano" either. And there are probably some reasons for which Hamilton, Creed, Armstrong, and Rock Racing all suspected Cancellara of doing something sketchy. Whether his blood is actually in those bags or not

Also FMK's review of Fabian Cancellara: The Authorized Biography points out some rather comical quotes concerning Cancellara's motives for working with Cecchini

"I was indeed around at a time when doping was unfortunately a very topical issue, but you have to make a distinction between those who specialised in the Grand Tours and those riders who focused on the classics, like me. For classics riders, doping wasn't something that could make them better."

It's funny, to the point that one wonders if it's an inside-joke between the two of them, at this point. Is this match-up on Ladbroke's or PaddyPower yet? The 'motor-doping' is a touchy subject for Cancellara, but it was more likely his manager that started the public sparring.

That's nice to see the two retirees settling the 'grudge' in a good-mannered way, for entertainment purposes.These Cancellara mini-races are like 15-kilometer hill climbs, and if Gaimon gets to pick his preferred race venue, then you have to like Gaimon's chances. His power profile and recent training will make it tough on Cancellara.